Midnight Ultra is a Neo-Acid Western that reminded me of Game Boy Color attempts at FPS yet is on Steam. With the price down to a couple of bucks due to the sale, I decided I'd pick it up. It's short, it's a mindfuck of a first person shooter, and it's not perfect by a long shot, but I had fun for the 90 minutes I spent in the game. $2 for 90 minutes? That's cheaper than many movies I watch...

In Midnight Ultra, you play some kind of witch hunter going up against a cult across 10 levels. It starts with a simple tutorial level and then throws you right in, battling the crazy members of the cult. They include weird witch women, dudes in their underwear with meat cleavers, punk bikers with baseball bats, guys in suits with machine guns, and so forth. After the initial campaign, a second one adds in armored shotgun infantry, snipers, killer birds, UFOs, and even yetis. Yeah, with 10 levels, you get effectively two campaigns, the first which is six levels, the second four. There are 2 major boss fights, though the end of the second campaign has its boss split into two parts as you take on a giant yeti and then kill the alien tumors inside its giant head.

The plot involves said witch hunter following the cult through California to a temple, entering some kind of portal to Florida, and then discovering a hotel in what may be an alternate universe. Upon defeating the cult leader, a big dude on a motorcycle who chooses to face you in a cemetery, you then wander through the snowy wasteland of this alternate world to try and find a way out. This leads you to battling yetis and aliens, because of course it freaking does. Between each level, you're given the story in quick, readable chunks over what appears to be the dying remains of a worn VHS tape. This actually works well with the game's palette options, which lets you set a variety of trippy and bizarre color schemes for how things are played. Since it's short, replayability with different colors and gear is a big part of the draw.

As for the gear, you only have two things: ammo and health. These don't seem to have an upper limit, and you'll need it. You start your playthrough by choosing a gun and a "melee" weapon, and that's all you need. I favored the submachine gun, but that was my preference. Also, the crosshair was a pentagram, so that was cool. The guns seem to work relatively well, depending on how you want to play, and once you beat a level, you can go back and try it with different loadouts as you desire. Melee, unfortunately, doesn't work nearly as well. The actual close-quarters fighting has bad hit detection, so beating an enemy to death with a baseball bat isn't really conceivable because you can't hit the guy right in front of you. One of the melee options is a ranged magic attack, and this proved to be the only effective choice of the set. Once I got it, I stayed with it.

Because melee is so terrible, I found the best way to proceed was to only shoot when I had to. As a result, I took to running through levels and only killing the enemies I had to when required to open a door. That's ok, it makes the game feel more frantic as I'm dodging fire and swinging baseball bats simply to get up a hill or leap across a chasm. Combined with the bizarre visuals of the initial campaign and trippy colors, and this is an awesome, fast-paced experience.

The second campaign proved harder, mainly because it has way more platforming in the third level, and the double jump you get doesn't always register properly. Sometimes you double jump, and sometimes you jump once, drop to the ground, and immediately jump again. Why? I have no idea, I never figured it out, but when you're doing precise platforming, this is a pain in the ass. Also, the sniper enemy can shoot at you from beyond the draw distance, so you might take a round to the face if you wait too long trying to get the jump right.

Hey, for $2, I'm happy with what I got. The devs have said it might get expanded upon again, but it came out two years ago. They're a small indie team working on several projects too, so I don't expect anything further.

I'm reasonably sure that just about everyone on this forum has played Blaster Master, it is one of the coolest NES titles ever created, it is part metroidvania, part platformer, and part overhead shooter. The game had an amazing soundtrack, perfect controls, and gameplay that was equal parts challenging and innovative.

As amazing as the original one was the franchise has quite the sordid history. It received a sequel on the genesis which was absolute trash, a PS 1 3-d Update which sold for $20 brand new and was also trash. There was a game on the wii ware service that I never played but did not look impressive, and a game boy color update of the original which from what I hear was pretty awesome but I never actually played it.

the original Blaster Master zero was a launch title for the switch, and truth be told, it was the reason that I bought a switch and was far more excited for that than I was for Breath of the Wild. BM zero was a great game, but at its heart it was just another remake, sure it added tons of new features and variations, it definitely did not feel like a rehash but at its heart thats what it was.

So last year, 30 years after its original release, Blaster Master finally got a proper sequel, and it is absolutely amazing. The story takes place after the original. The main character, Jason, has a tank (Sophia) and a co-pilot (Eve), after defeating the mutants of the first game Eve gets infected with a virus that has no earthly cure. Fearing her demise Jason takes off to journey through space, to reach Eves home planet in order to find a cure.

There are essentially 2 modes of play here, a sidescrolling platformer that has you driving a tank which you can hop in and out of as necessary, and an overhead shooter. As you drive around the planets you will find small doors and other passages that the tank cant fit into, you then can jump out of the tank and explore on foot. Entering these smaller doors takes you an overhead shooter mode where you just play as the guy shooting stuff.

Both modes are executing extremely well. In the tank levels your tank can aim in several directions and jump. As the game progresses you unlock tons of different upgrades and sub weapons. The upgrades allow you some fun traversal options such as wall jumping, limited flying, and swimming capabilities. You also gain access to sub weapons, some of these weapons are striclty for combat (like the homing missiles) but others are used both for traversal and combat, for example the dash move can be used to break through certain barriers, but it also serves as an air dash and gives you momentary invincibility which is huge when fighting the bosses. You have a special weapon gauge that is used to power all of your abilities, if it depletes it will slowly recharfe and your gun will be virtually useless for a few seconds. To keep the energy levels from depleting you can either collect blue pellets or fall from high distances. You dont take fall damage in the tank, instead falling from high up causes a small earthquake around you which is used to power up the sp meter. It is a cool mechanic but doesnt see too much use outside of that and one boss fight.

The overhead levels allow you access to many different types of guns. Like the original you collect power ups and each power up gives you access to a new gun. Like the original when you get hit you lose a gun upgrade, which I hated as a kid and still hate today. This game gives you 2 new things to play with. First, unlike the original, you can select which weapon you want to use, so if your fully powered up you can manually select from any of the available guns, this does come in handy. While the fully powered up gun is hands down the best weapon in the game, the others are a little more situational, so if your not fully powered up being able to choose the best weapon for the job is very helpful. Pretty early on you gain access to a shield, if your shield is active you will take damamge when hit, but wont lose a gun upgrade. The shield replenishes pretty quickly so as long as you don't take 2 hits in rapid succession you will keep your full powered guns, I absolutely loved this feature. On top of the guns you have a series of sub weapons which range from grenades, mines, and power ups. The sub weapons are situationally good and although I did not use them alot, I was happy they were there when I needed them. The final new thing added to this game is a bullet counter, you gain access to counter moves that you can use when there are too many bullets to dodge, using them at the rigth time will absorb bullets and stick them right back at the enemy, it was a cool feature that added a lot to the overhead sections.

The game takes place in outer space, there is an overworld map that is divided into several different sectors (A-G), each sector has one main large planet where the main quests take place, scattered throughout the large planet are coordinates for other smaller planets in various sectors. Finding blueprints opens up these small plaents which allow you to find various upgrades from permanent health increases, to new items that allow more traversal and combat options. The small planets are alot of fun and fairly varied in their execution. Some planets are just you in the overhead levels, some are puzzles, some are boss battles, some are just platorming challenges in and out of the tank. Each planet is its own little leve and I really enjoyed exploring them and collecting all the upgrades in the game.

The bigger planet is where the bulk of the game takes place. These planets are large and require lots of exploration. Luckily there is a very detailed map system, most of the time you will find a planet and not be able to explore it all until you find some kind of upgrades, finding these upgrades allows you to explore the whole thing and eventually lead to a boss battle.

There are lots of bosses in this game, some in the tank, some on foot, and one really cool one that require you to bounce back and forth between the 2. Boss battles are perfect, most of them are large and intimidating, and they are all somewhat challenging without being cheap.

There are also 3 side missions in this game that are mandatory to complete in order to get the good ending, I won't spoil anything just make sure that as you meet new pilots you go back and talk to them and complete their quests, most of them are simple fetch quests that take a few minutes but completing these will give you access to the true final level and true ending. The bad ending is so bad that you will not feel good about yourself if you don't see the game to its proper end.

All told it took me about 8-9 hours to 100% the game. I am thrilled that after all these years Blaster Master finally got a proper sequel and it is definitely worth your time. ANy fan of retro action adventures will enjoy it but if you are a fan of blaster master it is an absolute must play.

A best friend of mine started this game at the end of last week to practice his Japanese. He was having a lot of fun sending me screenshots, as he had never played it before. This is a game I've played portions of a lot and already beaten growing up, so the nostalgia kicked into high gear and I decided to play it alongside him on my Super Famicom Mini. One weekend later, he was still only a couple hours in, and I had binged the whole thing and finished it over the course of a little over 3 days . I did almost everything in the game, and even then mostly by memory, and it took me around 30 hours. This was my first time ever even seeing, let alone completing, the game in Japanese, but I still started to appreciate the design and especially the story in a way I never had before.

The gameplay is like a weird mix of FF IV's set jobs for each story character and FF V's job changing system. Every character (out of the 14 properly playable) has their own set job and unique abilities (save for Gogo who, shoutout to my friend MrPopo who told me can actually use EVERYONE's abilities if you press A on their stats screen), but can also be assigned Materia at a certain part in the story to begin learning spells and magic that any of them can use. Everyone can use the same magics, effectively, but their own powers still make them uniquely useful in their own ways, which is a level of party customization that I am exactly comfortable with (it's not generally something I enjoy).

Something I also only noticed this time is how the game slowly tries to train you for using a more diverse party. The game really opens up in its second half, and you can use a party of basically whomever you want, but the game uses the more linear first half to get you used to different party constructions. The game has a large ensemble cast rather than any one main character, and different scenarios have you taking control of different sets of members at different times. It forces you to get used to something like a party without a magic caster, or without someone who can can't not fight without MP. Given that the final area of the game forces you to use 3 separate parties (ideally of 4 members each), this is a really clever way to help prepare the player for that that I really only noticed this time through.

Something I also only really started to appreciate this time through is the game's narrative and the larger themes that are present throughout the game (This section will contain massive SPOILERS for a 20+ year old game: You have been warned :b ). Put into one giant Spoiler thing here more for its great length than for the actual spoilers it contains.

This being a Square RPG, it's usually trying to make some more serious commentary about something with its narrative, and this game is no exception. For the characters who have a decent presence in the story (Everyone but Gogo, Umaro, Mog, Stragos, and Relm), the main things linking their backstories isn't just being drawn together to save the world, it's a deep feeling of regret and apprehension about the future.

Everyone is chasing something impossible to catch. Terra (Tina in this version) is trying to find an objective answer to what it means to be a human and a reason to live. Locke is trying to erase the mistake he made in his youth that caused the death of his lady love. Cyan (Ceyenne in this version) is trying to fill the hole in his heart left by the death of his wife and child by seeking revenge against their murderer. Edgar and Sabin are chasing other preoccupations to try and distract them from their responsibility of working together to fill their father's large shoes in running the kingdom of Figaro. Shadow is constantly running from a past he's ashamed to have committed and trying to erase past cruelties with new ones. The list goes on. Their time in the world before the cataclysm shows these efforts to be self-destructive and very difficult, perhaps even bordering on not worth it. And then the apocalypse happens.

Their time in the World of Ruin changes them and forces them to confront these problems in uncomfortable but meaningful ways. Terra learns through helping raise a village of children that love is a feeling you have to find for yourself, and is something that in itself can give life meaning. Locke learns that, while you can't erase the mistakes of the past, you can always learn from them and use that knowledge to serve your future actions. Cyan learns that his wife and child are never truly gone as long as they're in his memory, and continuing to live meaningfully is one of the best ways to honor that memory. Sabin and Edgar learn that their most important responsibilities are to each other and to their people and that ruling them together, as their father's last request dictated, is really the best way forward. And while I certainly take issue with the (unfortunately typically East Asian, especially of the era) glorification of suicide in Shadow's ultimate decision to allow himself to be killed to finally stop running from his demons, in that context, it does ultimately still fit with the themes of the story.

The ultimate foil to this is the main villain Kefka. Kefka is definitely someone I have taken issue with in the past as a villain who definitely isn't a character but more of a force of nature. However, he does actually have narrative purpose in being a human who just becomes the god of destruction (instead of a god of destruction pre-existing who so often fills the role of a FF game's final boss). Kefka is someone who never regrets his actions and feels no remorse. His response to things getting bad is to plunge them deeper and deeper into chaos and destruction, and the destruction of the whole world is up for grabs. In his final Bond Villain-esque Bad Guy Speech (TM) to the main party before the final confrontation, he preaches to them the futility of existence. Why is life worth living when death comes for everyone? Why build anything when the entropic winds of time grind all to dust? Kefka is emblematic of a depressive and self-destructive defeatism that is the alternative answer to the internal conflicts the party members face. He truly believe's he's doing the world a favor by seeking to outright destroy it instead of allowing it to suffer by existing. This playthrough really allowed me to see a method to his proverbial madness and appreciate his narrative utility in ways I'd never considered before.

That's not to say the story is without its problems though. If you're not looking for deeper themes, it's fairly easy to pass over the story (as I had several times before this one) as a more disjointed series of vignettes that lead up to a greater whole rather than everyone working towards some greater unified narrative as a party, and there is regardless certainly some truth to that. The story is definitely more about each character's individual growth as a person, rather than a more unified party dynamic or personal relation to the main villain. The game also has some fairly jarring tonal shifts at times, and at more than one occasion will cut a very serious scene short with a comedic interlude to try and lighten the mood, often just ruining the whole thing. The very odd choice to give Ceyenne a samurai's accent (especially when his kingdom and even his own family don't talk like that) brings a weirdly dissonant and comedic tone to his otherwise tragic backstory (and this decision is probably my main beef with the original Japanese version's text as compared to the English one that gives Cyan a Shakespearean accent, which isn't quite so jarring, at least for me. Perhaps a Japanese audience has less of a comedic view of Ceyenne's accent than I found it).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. I already had this game as one of my all-time favorite JRPGs, and this playthrough just solidified that opinion for me. It is up there with Chrono Trigger as one of Square's best JRPGs on the system and a timeless classic in the genre. Still as great as it ever was, and something that will always have a fond place in my heart.

I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me

Bloodstained is the product of IGA's highly successful Kickstarter to make a new SotN without the Castlevania IP. And it succeeds at that brilliantly. The game's DNA is mostly Chronicles of Sorrow, with a bit of expansion on all the systems to have some more depth to it. The combat feels great, the exploration is well done, and the boss fights are on the right side of challenging without being too evil.

The basic premise is that you are Miriam, a girl who has a crystal growing inside her that lets her attune to demonic essence. Ten years prior to the game's story the alchemists of Europe do a giant demon summoning that goes wrong and Miriam falls into a coma. She wakes up ten years later to find that the only other survivor of the giant demon summoning has summoned a castle of demons and must be stopped. Add in some colorful characters that you'll meet while exploring the castle and you have your standard IGAvania story. It doesn't do anything groundbreaking, but it also doesn't do anything wrong with it.

As I mentioned, it mechanically is an iteration on the Chronicles of Souls games. Nearly every enemy has a chance of dropping their shard, which will be absorbed by Miriam to give her a boost. This comes in one of several forms. The basic is an attack; you press a button and you shoot something out (like bullet souls). A secondary attack style has you hold the right stick in a direction to aim before firing with the right shoulder button. The third style has you hold down the other right shoulder button to activate a state (e.g. health regeneration or stat boosts); this is like the guardian souls. The fourth is a straight passive boost, and the fifth is a familiar like you could get in SotN. Just like in SotN the familiars level up as you kill stuff, and they have various benefits beyond just being able to do a bit of damage. You can collect up to nine of a given shard to boost its power, but you also can use the crafting system to enhance a shard. This usually is the form of increasing projectile side, or adding a secondary benefit (e.g. plus luck also gives plus crit).

The crafting system is pretty well fleshed out. In addition to crafting weapons and armor you can also craft items (the only way to get the best healing potions) and cook food. Food provides you with a permanent stat boost the first time you eat a particular dish, and by end game if you've been eating a lot you'll have an extra few hundred HP and tens of points in your stats. You can also craft new shards, and the nice thing is that unlike the Souls crafting you don't lose the shards when you do so; the shard is just a catalyst. Another nice thing is any item you craft is now purchasable in the shop; you'll take advantage of this when you're doing food, as there are a lot of intermediate items that are advanced ingredients for dishes (e.g. miso broth).

There are a variety of weapons, and there is no obvious best weapon class. Within a weapon class there is a natural progression (though elemental properties can affect that), but whether you want to use fast swords, slow great swords, wide range whips, or guns (among others) will come down to taste and what feels right to you. That said, elemental weaknesses tend to be quite apparent, so swapping weapons as you go along is highly encouraged.

The game does have a couple of unique movement abilities that are interesting to use. One of them is unfortunately locked behind an enemy drop that isn't obvious (and isn't a 100% drop) and is required to progress, so it can be easy to get stuck there (as even if you get the shard it isn't obvious that you can use it for mobility at that point; you have to accept video game logic). The game also nicely will drop hints about where to go if you talk to the shopkeepers, though they only give a given clue once.

A minor note on the Switch port. While docked the main problem is that some transitions are super long; this becomes a bit frustrating on vertical transitions when you didn't jump quite high enough, as you trigger a transition and back and it's slow each time. Undocked things run noticeably slower; I'd personally wait until there are some performance patches (which are in the works) before doing heavy undocked play. It's fine enough for things like farming areas you already know, but don't do a boss fight undocked.

Games Beaten: 2015201620172018Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.

Fat Princess' campaign is a bit more tedious than it probably needs to be for what is essentially a glorified multi-level tutorial to prepare folks for multiplayer, but the characters/world are very cute (they remind me of Behemoth's work a bit), and I enjoyed my time with this one enough to want to check out the other entries in the series at some point.

Commander Lilith is more Borderlands 2 and I was glad to have an excuse to head back to Pandora. If its goal was to whet my appetite for the upcoming sequel...then that mission was accomplished. Borderlands 2 is probably my favorite game of its era (roughly the "heyday" years of the last console gen 2006-2013), and so this meaty freebie (it took me about as long to beat as most of the longer DLC from BL2) was a pleasant surprise.

Monster World IV is the first game in the series I have spent any serious time with and I adored it. The spritework is large and lovely, it pushes the limits of Genesis programming in some interesting ways, and the level design is generally challenging but fair...and also regularly inventive and colorful. I certainly recommend it to anyone who likes action-platformers with some light RPG/Metroidvania elements.

At the half way point of the year I am not even on track for 50. My lowest year so far since starting all this tracking was 65 total. I suppose I should step up my game and shoot for that, at least...

Monster World IV is solid. I actually enjoyed Wonder Boy in Monster World a bit more from a gameplay perspective, though. You should give that a shot if you are interested in the series. Also, have you not yet played Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap? That is the series’ crown jewel, and I loved it.

I've just completed my play through of Amid Evil, and seeing as Popo pretty much nailed all my thoughts, I don't have a lot to really say. It's Heretic fused with Hexen and Painkiller, it provides a wealth of different worlds and enemies to kill, and it really does encourage the use of all of its weapons and the soul mode variations to kill things effectively throughout.

Every world comes with its own challenges, designs, and aesthetics, and while I didn't always find them all to be spectacular in every regard, the overall piece flows together into a cohesive product that fills the craving we have for the current wave of indie retro FPS. One thing that I appreciate is that Amid Evil provides enough variation, that you might find a world you find incredibly frustrating followed by one you absolutely adore. A case in point: I disliked many of the enemies found in the Arcane Expanse world but absolutely loved the level design and mellow music (perfect for a mage cathedral floating in space), but then followed this with The Sacred Path world and got a massive kick taking on solar-based knights in well lit fortresses. Every locale feels unique, from the industrial ironworks of The Forge to the bizarre unreality that makes up The Void.

The nice thing about the changing worlds is that they also required I swap out weapons, so everything in my arsenal got time to shine. Even the gear I didn't care for suddenly found places where it was the undeniable MVP, and in those worlds, I used those weapons liberally. My personal favorite? A shard-shooting crystal mace that hit with enough oomph to knock enemies back and pin them into walls. It's as satisfying as Painkiller's stakegun, and while I needed to be in closer range to maintain effectiveness, seeing an enemy go flying back with a splat was all I needed to make me a happy camper.

Look, the glut of old school-inspired FPS may have you feeling a little ill, and the trend doesn't seem to be slowing down. There are winners like Dusk and losers like Castle Werewolf, and it can sometimes be tough to find the quality among the chaff. Amid Evil is one of the winners, and if you love your FPS to be more medieval-themed, then it's well worth playing.

MrPopo wrote:Did you ever find a situation where the lightning trident was awesome? Because I never did.

On my radar for awesome retro FPSs is Ion Maiden and Prodeus. Prodeus is scheduled to come out in a month or two and the gameplay videos have got me all excited.

Yes, in The Forge. Those rolling spikeballs usually came as a group, and you could often get them to bunch and then take them out with the trident's overcharge. I also used it occasionally in the Arcane Expanse to hit enemies that didn't dodge so I could overcharge into the dodging wizards.

Also, the trident is the only hitscan weapon in the game, so it doubles as a sniping tool in the rare case where you need one. I used it against some enemies who were so far away, they never noticed me as I shot them.

I've got both Prodeus and Ion Maiden on my Steam wishlist at the moment. I have high hopes that they'll be awesome, but I've been burned before.